Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Does anybody want little kids to scrape their knees on
the playground? Of course not.

Here’s a harder question: Should taxpayers pay to resurface
a church playground to make it softer and safer – even if the state constitution
explicitly prohibits spending public money “directly or indirectly, in aid of
any church”?

Yes, the Supreme Court said Monday, raising cheers –
and fears -- that the court is chipping away at the wall of separation between
church and state.

While the federal government does fund faith-based
social programs, it traditionally has steered clear of seeming to favor one
religion over another.

The court ruled 7 to 2 in Trinity Lutheran Churchof
Columbia, Missouri v. Comer that Missouri
violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution when it denied the church
a public benefit purely on the basis of its religious status.

Put another way: Churches have as much right as any other nonprofit
to tap public funds.

The lopsided margin doesn’t reflect the differences in
attitudes on the court, where justices went toe-to-toe over, well, a footnote.
More on that shortly.

The court Tuesday returned four cases related to
public funding for private and religious schools to state courts in Colorado
and New Mexico, which also have constitutional restrictions against public
funds for religious organizations.

Dozens of other states, including Virginia, have
similar provisions.

Writing for the majority in the Trinity Lutheran case,
Chief Justice John Roberts said it was “odious to our Constitution” for
Missouri to exclude Trinity Lutheran Church from a public benefit “solely
because it is a church.”

But in a blistering dissent, Justice Sonya Sotomayor
wrote: “This case is about nothing less than the relationship between religious
institutions and the civil government – that is, between church and state.

“The court profoundly changes that relationship by
holding, for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to
provide public funds directly to a church,” she wrote, joined by Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg. Two other liberal-leaning justices sided with the Roberts
majority.

In 2012, Trinity Lutheran, wanted to upgrade its pea
gravel playground. It applied for a state grant from a program that reimburses
the cost of installing a rubberized surface made of recycled tires. The church
sought $20,000 for the $30,580 project.

The state denied the grant, citing the state constitution’s
provision against using public funds to promote religious views, and the church
went to court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit
affirmed a lower court’s decision, siding with the state.

Following the highest court’s ruling in favor of the
church, advocates of school choice and vouchers for religious schools claimed
victory.

“We fully expect to see governors and legislatures
have renewed discussions about school choice programs in their states in light
of this momentous decision,” Greg Block, executive director for the American
Federation for Children, said in a statement.

But there was that curious, if non-binding, footnote.

“This case involves express discrimination based on
religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing. We do not address
religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination,” Roberts wrote.

But Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas wrote they
would not have limited the ruling to the playground or child safety. They favor
expanding taxpayer funding for religious endeavors.

“The general principles here do not permit
discrimination against religious exercise,” Gorsuch wrote, “whether on the
playground or anywhere else.”

The court could have avoided the issue entirely. In
April, before the court heard oral arguments, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, a
Republican, changed state policy to allow churches to participate in the grant
program.

Keeping public money and the collection plate separate
is a valuable tradition that benefits both parties, say proponents of separation
of church and state.

“This ruling undermines the bedrock principle that no
American should be forced to support a religion against his or her will,” Barry
Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State,
said in a statement.

That principle is in jeopardy with the Roberts court,
which, Sotomayor warned, may be leading us “to a place where separation of
church and state is a constitutional slogan, not a constitutional commitment.”

Thursday, June 22, 2017

News that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may
become America’s next fitness star takes some getting used to.

Yes, she’s a lifelong champion of gender equality and
civil rights.

She wrote the majority opinion in the landmark sex
discrimination case United States v. Virginia. The ruling 21 years ago this
week -- June 27, 1996 -- required Virginia Military Institute, after 150 years of
male-only admissions, to accept women.

Yes, she’s a cultural icon and a hero to millennials,
thanks to “Notorious R.B.G.,” a Tumblr blog that went viral in 2013.

A book by that title became a New York Times
bestseller in 2015. Her picture is on T-shirts, mugs, shot glasses and hoodies.
She’s been making a fashion statement with her signature fishnet gloves for
nearly two decades.

Her consequential life is even the subject of a
children’s picture book, “I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark.”

Yes, she’s an author. “My Own Words,” her book published
last October, has brought her $204,000 in royalties, she reported in a recent
financial disclosure.

But a gym rat – at the age of 84? Yes, that too.

Ginsburg has been working out with personal trainer
Bryant Johnson since 1999, after treatment for colon cancer left her weak and
frail. She went back to the gym after surgery for pancreatic cancer in
2009.

Johnson’s pushup-and-tell book is coming out in
October: “The RBG Workout: How She Stays Strong . . . and You Can Too!”

It’s a sign of how much American has changed that an
accomplished jurist and “little old lady in tennis shoes” can also be a model
for pumping iron.

Not everyone will rush out to buy Johnson’s book. The
court’s most reliable liberal excites foes as well as fans.

Last summer, she candidly criticized then-presidential
candidate Donald Trump. “I can’t imagine what the country would be – with
Donald Trump as our president,” she told The New York Times.

Trump responded with a tweet: “Justice
Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very dumb
political statements about me. Her mind is shot—resign!”

Ginsburg doubled down. “He’s a faker,”
she told journalist Joan Biskupic. “He has no consistency about him. He says
whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego . . .”

After a firestorm of criticism, Ginsburg
said in a statement she regretted the remarks – and both sides retreated to
their corners.

It didn’t have to be that way. In 1987, Justice
Thurgood Marshall ripped President Ronald Reagan on civil rights, saying Reagan
was at “the bottom” among presidents.

Instead of blasting Marshall, Reagan invited
him to the White House and told him his life story. “That night, I think I made
a friend,” Reagan wrote.

Friendship seems a quaint notion in Washington these
days, but Ginsberg’s close friendship with the late Justice Antonin Scalia,
with whom she amicably disagreed on almost every legal issue, is legendary, literally
the inspiration for an opera.

Ginsburg tells an enlightening story about their
collegiality. While she was writing the majority opinion in the VMI case, Scalia,
the sole dissenter, dropped off a draft of his stinging dissent.

“It absolutely ruined my weekend,” she said in an
interview at the Aspen Institute last month but added she was glad to have the
extra days to answer his points.

Asked about the current rancor in Congress, she recalled
the Senate used to be called a gentlemen’s club. In 1986, that less combative
Senate confirmed Scalia, whose conservative views were well known, with no
negative votes. In 1993, it confirmed Ginsburg 96 to 3.

Many think had Hillary Clinton been elected president,
Ginsburg might have retired. Now, though, she shows no sign of giving President
Trump another court pick.

“I will do this job as long as I can do it full
steam,” she said at George Washington University in February. “When I can’t,
that will be the time I will step down.”

Her regimen of pumping iron means her critics may have
to wait a long time for that moment.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Washington was badly shaken Wednesday by what appeared
to be the politically motivated shootings of Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, a
top congressional leader, and three others at a baseball field in Alexandria.

The shooter, whose name I will not use because such sickos
crave fame, died after a gunfight with police. We may never know his motivation,
but he had posted anti-Republican screeds on social media.

In the aftermath of the attack, many politicians
curbed their instinct for the jugular and urged an end to harsh partisan rhetoric.

“We may have
our differences, but we do well to remember that everyone who serves in our
nation's capital is here because they love our country," President Donald Trump
said.

“An attack
on one of us is an attack on all of us,” said an emotional House Speaker Paul Ryan,
and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said she prays for all members of Congress,
regardless of party.

It would be
nice to think we’re seeing the Thaw of 2017, a melting of the polar ice caps on
which Democrats and Republicans sit in frosty isolation, but don’t count on it.

Even though some
lawmakers may genuinely want to put aside fierce partisanship, neither party seems
willing to risk constituent outrage – and primary challenges -- if it compromises
on health care and the budget, to say nothing of stricter gun laws.

Unfortunately,
the most likely result of the gunman’s rampage may be an even more locked-down
and remote Congress.

House
members already are invoking security as a reason to avoid town hall meetings
and other uncomfortable encounters with constituents.

Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, said members may have to
“recalibrate” and rethink events like town halls.

“It’s a
wake-up call,” Brat told Roll Call, a newspaper on Capitol Hill. “We should not
be doing this.”

Brat was
heckled and booed at a town hall in his district in February when he defended
Trump’s policies.

“Threats
are nothing new to me, and I have gotten my share as a felony judge,” Gohmert wrote
in a letter to constituents.

“However,
the House Sergeant at Arms advised us after former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords
was shot at a public appearance, that civilian attendees at Congressional public
events stand the most chance of being harmed or killed – just as happened there,”
he wrote.

Giffords
was setting up a “Congress on your Corner” event in Tucson in January 2011 when
a lone gunman shot her in the head, killed six people and injured 13 others.

Increased
congressional security surely is needed in some settings. Of the 22 members of Congress at the
ballfield, Scalise alone had a security detail, assigned because he is the
third-ranking Republican in the House.

While
Capitol Police protect all members of Congress when they’re in the Capitol
complex, they provide 24-hour security only to the House and Senate leadership.

“By him
(Scalise) being there, he probably saved everybody else’s life, because if you
don’t have a leadership person there, there would have been no security there,”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, told MSNBC.

In this
era of fiscal belt-tightening, having taxpayers pay for stepped-up security for
hundreds of House members and senators outside the Capitol is problematic.

Lawmakers
are exploring other options, such as allowing members to use campaign funds for
security outside Washington and of moving district offices to more secure
locations.

As we
move forward, we would be wise to listen to Giffords, who knows better than
anyone the risks of openness. Responding
to Gohmert, she wrote in a statement:

“I was
shot on a Saturday morning. By Monday morning, my offices were open to the
public. Ron Barber -- at my side that Saturday, who was shot multiple times,
then elected to Congress in my stead — held town halls. It’s what the people
deserve in a representative.

“To the
politicians who have abandoned their civic obligations, I say this: Have some
courage,” she wrote. “Face your constituents. Hold town halls.”

Explosion in Tattooing, Piercing Tests State Regulators

A man gets a U.S. flag tattooed on his hand at Jack Brown’s Tattoo Revival in Fredericksburg, Virginia. As tattoos, piercings and other body art becomes more popular, state regulators are racing to keep up.

Anyone who goes into a tattoo parlor in North Carolina can be assured that it has a permit from the state health department and that inspectors have checked the premises for safe and sanitary conditions.

But go for a body piercing in the Tarheel State and there’s no such protection. A state law, approved in the 1990s, regulates tattoos but doesn’t apply to other forms of body art.

“Most people think it’s all regulated,” said state Rep. Kevin Corbin, a Republican. “But we found out there’s no law on the books.”

North Carolina is not alone. State legislators and health officials across the country are trying to keep up with the growing popularity and evolving trends of body art.

Health officials worry that unregulated body art studios may not follow safe practices, which can lead to scarring, nerve damage and infections, including hepatitis C, the leading cause of liver cancer in the U.S.

“The body art industry is much more nimble than the government,” said Doug Farquhar, who tracks body art legislation in the states as the director of environmental health for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Nearly four in 10 people born after 1980 have a tattoo and one in four have a piercing some place other than an earlobe, the Pew Research Center has reported. (The Pew Charitable Trusts funds both the center and Stateline.)

Besides tattoos and pierced navels, today’s self-expression through body art may include branding, scarification (scratching, etching or cutting to produce a design in the skin), or subdermal implants (placing objects under the skin for ornamentation).

Nearly every state has some type of body art law, but laws vary widely. Most states do agree on one thing: age limits. At least 45 states prohibit minors from getting tattoos, and 38 states prohibit body piercing and tattooing minors without parental permission, according to NCSL.

In the last four years, states have considered 167 bills on body art and tattooing, and 33 have become law, Farquhar said.

Oregon, for example, extensively rewrote its tattooing regulations in 2012, updated them last year, and in January clarified that “microblading,” in which a practitioner uses fine needles and pigment to create eyebrow hairs, is tattooing and not an aesthetic, or cosmetic, practice.

Oregon requires practitioners to have hundreds of hours of training and pass written exams before being licensed for specific types of body art. Georgia is among states that do not regulate or certify the body art industry, but most Georgia counties have adopted ordinances.

Maryland does not license body artists, though it requires them to use sterile instruments, wash their hands, wear disposable gloves during procedures, and cleanse customers’ skin. They also must maintain three years of customer records and make them available to health officers if requested.

But some Maryland localities, such as Baltimore, do require licenses. In Nevada, which has no state body art regulations, local ordinances, such as in Las Vegas’ Clark County, prevail.

North Carolina is one of at least six states considering body art legislation this year. Corbin co-sponsored a bill updating the tattoo law to include other types of body art. It passed the state House in April and is under consideration in the Senate.

The sharp increase in hepatitis C cases in the last few years has intensified states’ concern about sterile and sanitized needles and equipment and associated health and safety training.

The number of new hepatitis C infections in the United States tripled between 2010 and 2015, to more than 2,400, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month. The CDC blames the increase on the rise of injection drug use associated with the opioid epidemic and says major research studies have not shown hepatitis C to be spread through licensed, commercial tattooing facilities.

“However,” the CDC said, “transmission of Hepatitis C (and other infectious diseases) is possible when poor infection-control practices are used during tattooing or piercing.”

Corbin was a Macon County commissioner last year and a candidate for the North Carolina state Legislature when he heard from his county health officers about the rising rate of hepatitis C and the gap in state law regulating body art.

Macon County environmental health specialist Jonathan Fouts explained his frustration inspecting a tattoo shop: “Usually beside the tattoo room is the piercing room. I felt like I was only doing half of what I should be doing, since I couldn’t say anything about the piercings and needles.”

Corbin took the problem to the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners, which made a body art bill a legislative priority. Then the freshman representative took the issue to Raleigh.

“I don’t personally have any piercings and I don’t plan to have any, but if someone wants to have them, more power to them,” Corbin said. “We want them to be safe.”

Tattoos an Old Concern

Health officials have worried about the health risks of tattooing for decades. New York City banned tattooing in 1961, citing concerns about hepatitis, a virus that attacks the liver. Tattooing continued underground, however, and the ban was eventually lifted in 1997.

In 2015, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law requiring tattoo artists to use single-use ink and needles. The body art community protested that the law’s language was overly broad, and Cuomo, a Democrat, rescinded the measure. The state Health Department is developing new rules.

The American Red Cross requires someone who has had a tattoo to wait one year to donate blood if the tattoo was applied in a state that does not regulate tattoo facilities — Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia. No waiting period is required if the tattoo was applied in a state that requires tattoo shops to use sterile needles and single-use ink.

Another potential health risk is tattoo ink, which is not regulated or tested by the federal government. But no outbreaks of infection from contaminated ink have occurred since 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports.

Craving Regulation

It’s unusual for any industry to want regulation, but body art practitioners say regulations make everyone safer. In the absence of comprehensive government rules, the Association of Professional Piercers adopted its own standards. The association also offers online, industry-specific training in how to minimize the hazards of bloodborne pathogens, such as hepatitis and HIV.

State legislators, recognizing that they aren’t experts in body-art best practices, often call on body art practitioners to help write and enforce laws.

San Francisco body piercer Steve Joyner of the Association of Professional Piercers has helped about two-dozen states write legislation over the last two decades, an experience he describes as eye-opening.

“The downfall of politicians is that they really don’t understand our industry,” he said, adding that many state legislators have never set foot in a tattoo or piercing studio.

Joyner is working with the National Environmental Health Association and the Association of Food and Drug Officials to update the national Body Art Model Code.

The old code was written in the 1990s, when bloodborne pathogens and medical waste disposal didn’t get as much attention as they do today. States and localities will be able to adapt the new code to their needs.

“It’s meant as a guide to best practices for regulators and also for the regulated community,” said Sandra Whitehead, director of program and partnership development for the environmental health association.

The code-writing committee, which includes industry representatives and state and local health workers, has been working a year and a half. The goal is to publish the new code in October.

“When you have everybody at the table, it takes a little longer,” Whitehead said.

One of the first instances of body art practitioners asking to be regulated was in Florida, where a piercing law was enacted in 1999 with input from the industry. Tattooists soon started lobbying for state regulations too.

“The tattoo industry wanted to ‘pedigree’ their profession. That’s the word they used,” said Gina Vallone-Hood, environmental administrator for the Florida Department of Health’s Bureau of Environmental Health.

The Florida Legislature passed a tattoo law in 2010, and the Department of Health started licensing tattoo artists in 2012. Currently 450 piercing shops and 6,000 tattooists are licensed in Florida.

Michael Crea, a piercer for 20 years who owns a shop in Sarasota, is president of the Florida Environmental Health Association. Crea also runs the state’s body piercing certification class that is required for piercers.

“You really don’t want people working out of their house,” he said. “We do deal with blood and body fluids. We break the skin. You can be spreading hepatitis, MRSA [methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus] or AIDS, and you don’t want that.”

But Crea and other body art practitioners say that even when regulations are on the books, enforcement can be weak. Health inspectors often are responsible for checking out a wide range of potential hazards — from septic tanks to swimming pools — and can’t be expert in everything.

That’s why the environmental health association will feature a live tattooing demonstration at its annual conference in July in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“It will be a safe space for health inspectors to ask questions,” said Christl Tate of the environmental health group. “Our mutual goal is protecting the public health.”

Thursday, June 8, 2017

First lady Melania Trump and son Barron reportedly
will move to Washington June 14. If so, the move would be a birthday present
for the president, who turns 71 that day.

No more will Trump be home alone late at night at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue with just his TV, his Twitter account and the Lincoln
portrait to keep him company.

Trump’s critics and many of his fans hope the presence
of the first lady will tame the president’s restless urge to unburden himself
of early-morning thoughts. His family’s move “is expected to lend some degree
of normalcy to a presidency defined by its abnormality in substance and style,”
Politico reported.

What? No more covfefe? No one will soon forget Trump’s
May 31 tweet: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe” – an unfinished thought.
Covfefe, a nonword, instantly became a punchline and a synonym for the
president’s stream of consciousness rants.

White House staffers and the Republican leadership on
Capitol Hill have tried to discourage his tweeting. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ruefully admits his advice to
stop tweeting so much has gone unheeded.

Trump loves his unfettered access to 32 million followers
on Twitter, where he presents his own version of reality. Many of his fans never
see the reports of fact-checkers.

Whether Melania will try to change her husband’s
habits, or even can, is doubtful. She says her main role is taking care of
Barron.

Trump’s in-laws, who live with the family in Trump
Tower and often travel on weekends with Melania and Barron, also will be spending
time at the White House.

Melania’s parents, Victor and Amalija Knavs,
reportedly will not relocate full time, as Michelle Obama’s mother and Hillary
Clinton’s mother did, however.

After a long line of first daughters in the White
House, Barron, 11, will be the first son since John F. Kennedy Jr., known then as
John-John.

Barron, who invited his entire fifth grade class in
New York to visit the White House last month, will attend the private St.
Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Md., this fall. The private, coed school
has 580 students and a 7-to-1 student-teacher ratio, according to its website.

Although the Trumps were married in an Episcopal
Church, Trump has indicated he is a Presbyterian, and his wife, who was born in
Slovenia, which is largely Catholic, said after meeting the Pope that she is a
Catholic.

Barron, who decorated his
room in Trump Tower, will also be able to decorate his room in the first family’s
living quarters, a privilege other first kids have also enjoyed, according to the
White House Historical Association.

Melania Trump said during the campaign she would focus on cyberbullying
as her project in the White House, but there’s speculation she could change her
mind.

She has kept former first lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden.
Obama started her “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity the year
after her husband became president.

The first lady has not had the political experience of either Obama or
Karen Pence. The wife of Vice President Mike Pence is often at his side and is
known to be an adviser.

Pence has installed a beehive with 15,000 to 20,000 honeybees at the
vice president’s residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory. Pence also had a beehive
at the Indiana governor’s mansion when her husband was governor.

The hive is intended to draw attention to what people can do to help bee
colonies, which have been in decline. Bees are needed to pollinate about 90
crops, including nuts, fruits and vegetables.

Whatever Melania Trump, a former model, decides in the way of a
project, her wardrobe will be scrutinized closely. She made news on her husband’s
first foreign trip when she wore a floral silk coat from Dolce & Gabbana
that retails for $51,500.

A first lady’s role is not mentioned in the Constitution, but her influence
on the world of fashion and culture, if not policy, has been undeniable since
the days of Jackie Kennedy.

We can all hope she has a positive influence on her husband and perhaps
can get him to think before he tweets.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

After seven months of post-election hibernation, the old
bears in the Democratic Party are stirring.

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday formed
American Possibilities, a political action committee that could be his launching
pad for a presidential bid.

Biden, who chose not to run last time, is probably
right that he would have been a better candidate than Hillary Clinton, but time
marches on. He’ll turn 78 in November 2020.

Clinton has reappeared after long walks in the woods near
Chappaqua to blame her defeat on former FBI Director Jim Comey, the Russians,
the Democratic National Committee, the news media and even the perception that
she couldn’t lose.

“I was a victim of a very broad assumption that I was
going to win,” she said Wednesday at a tech conference in California.

Whatever you think of her, Clinton insists she’s not
running for office again. She does want a role in Democratic politics.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

Her new political group – Onward Together – aims to
organize against President Donald Trump’s policies and help people enter
politics. Its slogan: “Resist, insist, persist and enlist.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi raises hope that
Democrats can regain control of the House next year with a renewed emphasis on
creating jobs. She also wisely discourages loose, exuberant talk about
impeaching Trump.

“If you are talking about impeachment, you are talking
about, `What are the facts?’ Not that `I don’t like him’ and `I don’t like his
hair’ and – what are the facts?” Pelosi said May 15 on CNN.

Pelosi wants the Speaker’s gavel back. But she is 77,
and her lieutenants, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, are 77 and 76.

Age matters in all these cases because Democrats need
to let go of the past while they cultivate a new generation of leaders. Democrats know
what they don’t like – all things Trump – but they still struggle with what
President George H.W. Bush derided long ago as “the vision thing.”

In a sign they have no intention of fading into life
in Chicago, the Obamas just plunked down $8.1 million for the house they’ve been
renting in Washington.

The former president, 55, likely has decades ahead to motivate
young people to get involved and run for office.

Meanwhile, one member of the younger Democratic set, Chelsea
Clinton, is on the talk circuit promoting her new children’s book, “She Persisted:
13 American Women who Changed the World.”

“I don’t have any plans to” run for office, says the
former first daughter. That’s a maybe.

At 37, she has nearly 1.7
million Twitter followers, but Clinton’s chief qualifications – and her chief
liabilities -- are her name and extraordinary ability to rake in cash as a
speaker.

She was inspired to write the book after the Senate silenced
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., during the debate over the nomination of Jeff
Sessions to be attorney general.

When Warren attempted to read a letter by Coretta
Scott King opposing Sessions for a federal judgeship decades ago, she basically
was told to sit down and shut up.

“She was warned. She was given an explanation.
Nevertheless, she persisted,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said,
turning “She Persisted” into a rallying cry for Democrats.

Warren, nearly 68, is up for re-election next year and
hasn’t said if she’ll run for president in 2020. Republicans reportedly plan to
attack her hard during the Senate campaign in hopes of spoiling her
presidential chances.

“Sometimes being a girl isn’t easy. At some point,
someone probably will tell you no, will tell you to be quiet and may even tell
you your dreams are impossible,” Clinton writes. “Don’t listen to them. These
13 American women certainly did not take no for an answer. They persisted.”

Large protests against Trump’s policies enliven Democrats,
but it will take more than marches to win elections.

Trump’s voters aren’t yet having the buyers’ remorse
critics expect. Hillary Clinton would again lose – even the popular vote -- if
the election were rerun, a Washington Post/ABC News poll reported April 23.

For their long climb back to relevancy, Democrats will
need fresh faces, an agenda that connects with ordinary Americans -- and
persistence.